The numbers have long been disputed. Some teams include season ticket holders in their attendance figures, other provide reduced numbers to reduce the amount of profit tax they have to pay

I attended a match in Melbourne last year. Rebels v Reds. I was staggered at how small the crowd was. I did a count (twice) and was struggling to get over 2000 and yet in the papers the next day, the crowd was reported as being approximately 7000.